Is Dhurandhar the ultimate rage-bait?

But what completes Dhurandhar’s messaging is its visuals. Dhar microdoses stomach-churning graphic scenes into the action, which serve no other purpose but to rage-bait its audience.

The formula

Adjudged Oxford Dictionary’s 2025 ‘Word of the Year’, rage-bait refers to online content deliberately designed to elicit anger. Though the term is increasingly used for social media content that provokes, frustrates or offends, Dhar has taken the engagement-farming formula to the big screen. The mechanism is the same: provoke and proliferate. But successful rage-baiting takes not just infuriating content but also the right format. Dhurandhar delivers both.

The film is built for audiences of the algorithm age. It employs a chapter-wise format and Tarantino-esque pacing to keep the narrative flowing. The episodic structure helps an audience attuned to binge-watching web series to get through the lengthy screenplay. Dhar even meets the current obsession with nostalgia, using cracking remixes of Asha Bhonsle’s ‘Piya Tu Ab To Aja’ and Usha Uthup’s ‘Ramba Ho’.

The film claims to lay bare the politics within Pakistan, and the intermixing of power-hungry, up-to-no-good politicians, Army officials, businessmen and gangsters. How much of it is true, if at all, is hard to guess. On the Indian side, Dhar fictionalises very real events and characters. At one point, the real recording of the 26/11 attackers speaking to their handler is played for the audience.

And if that isn’t enough to provoke anger, it doubles up the sentiment with its visuals — from bludgeoned skulls and chopped up fingers to men hanging from ceilings or pierced with hooks. The men in Dhar’s film indulge in extreme violence, and the filmmaker doesn’t censor any of it, leaving audiences with scenes that would have them squirming in their seats.

Media theorists have a word for this kind of cinema: splatter horror. Some call it “torture porn”. These films revel in the theatricality of a mutilated body. The filmmaker focuses on the fragility of the human body to manipulate the viewer’s emotions. Sociologist Isabel Pinedo describes such content as “recreational terror,” which induces the threat of danger while assuring viewers of their safety. This dynamic mixes fear with fascination and, as Pinedo notes, allows audiences to fulfil a “social need to express rage and terror.”

Why this matters

The gore may make the viewers uncomfortable in the moment, but its impact goes beyond the cinema halls. For years, researchers have warned that violent media, consumed through television, radio, films or video games, can increase aggression. The effect is more pronounced in children, who can become desensitised to the pain and suffering of others and may mimic violent behaviours. Though Dhurandhar is A-rated (adults only), as films opt for OTT releases, it’s difficult to gatekeep children from watching restricted content on their home devices.

Anger is also a great messaging tool, as the “negativity bias” in cognition means humans are naturally programmed to be aroused by it. The American Psychological Association defined “negativity bias” in a 2008 bulletin as the “propensity to attend to, learn from, and use negative information far more than positive information.”

Some may argue that the subject of the film warrants the depiction of violence. Unlike predecessors like the classic Kill Bill or the more recent Animal, the violence here isn’t just cathartic or aesthetic, but tied to real-world tensions. But what matters is whether the film uses violence to illuminate uncomfortable truths or to manipulate emotions?

Consider how the film structures its violence. Gory scenes are interwoven with crowd-pleasing elements: Akshay Khanna’s viral Balochi ‘chaap‘ dance, the kitschy wedding banger, and heroic entry scenes. The film wants you to be angry, but also entertained. It wants you disturbed, but coming back for the sequel on March 19, 2026.

Arguably, Dhurandhar isn’t the first film to employ this tactic. But in an already fractured society, there’s a greater onus on filmmakers to practice their craft responsibly. This isn’t a call to avoid sensitive subjects or sanitise history, but to make films that don’t glorify and rise above our basest impulses. Dhurandhar had the talent and resources to be that kind of film. Instead, it chose to be rage-bait.